The first article of this blogseries introduced the context and importance of adaptive approaches. In this second article we introduce the first three approaches - agile - human centred design - lean startup. In the next article of the ‘adaptive approaches’ blogseries we will discuss the other three approaches - thinking and working politically - adaptive management - problem driven iterative adaptation.

Agile

Agile is a time boxed, iterative approach to software delivery that builds software incrementally from the start of the project, instead of trying to deliver it all at once near the end (Rasmusson, 2014).In the early 1990s, software development faced a crisis. It was estimated that there was a three-year lag from start to finish in developing a product: from stating a software project’s requirements to an actual application being produced and shipped in the form of floppy disks and CD-ROMs. Over those three years, these requirements – or indeed the whole business – were likely to shift, especially as technology advanced. At the time, software was developed according to a heavyweight and linear methodology known as ‘waterfall’. This borrowed from approaches to physical engineering. It is called waterfall because teams complete one step before moving on to the next – flowing in one direction only. The prevailing wisdom among software developers was that more time spent planning at the outset would save money later on. This resulted, however, in lengthy design processes so that the software was often out of date by the time it was released, and there were gaps between what users needed and how these needs were translated into software design (Varhol, 2015).

Today, surveys suggest that agile is now used by most IT professionals, whether this is ‘pure agile’ or a hybrid with traditional waterfall methods. This shift has happened in the last 10 years (Jeremiah, 2017). Agile is now applied to other types of projects and products far beyond software. At the World Bank, a community of 200 ‘Agile Champions’ has been established as part of an effort to create a culture of continuous improvement (World Bank, 2019).

Human-centred design

Originating in product design, design thinking involves generating and testing creative solutions that people will adopt. Within this approach, HCD focuses on understanding the users of products or services and creating things which are beneficial to them. Human perspectives are considered at multiple points in the design process, from observing what the problem is, through coming up with ideas, to testing out potential solutions. Establishing a personal connection with users in order to see the world through their eyes and gain a deep understanding of their needs is therefore crucial. User-experience design (often shortened as ‘UX design’) can be seen as a subset of HCD. This aims to improve the experience of the user, in terms of usability, accessibility and pleasure, drawing on insights from psychology and other social sciences (Interaction Design Foundation, n.d.).

One way to visualise the design process is the UK Design Council double diamond (see Figure 1). The first diamond is the process of problem discovery and definition, which results in a problem definition, or design brief. The second is the process of solution development and delivery. Divergent thinking means that even unusual ideas are considered, and designers do not have a particular solution in mind from the outset. Designers build tangible prototypes, such as models, videos or role-playing exercises, to generate conversation and get feedback from potential users. This means even ‘failed’ prototypes are still useful as they facilitate convergent thinking in the second half of the design process. IDEO, a US design firm, uses a similar pattern of inspiration, ideation and implementation (IDEO Design Kit, n.d.). A fourth ‘i’ might be iteration, as these stages are run repeatedly to refine a prototype.

There are numerous examples of HCD being applied to social problems. In the UK, social entrepreneur Hilary Cottam has used design thinking, along with participatory methods, to reimagine the welfare state, launching experiments in a range of sectors including health, ageing, family life and youth people (Cottam, 2018). DFID, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Australian Department for Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) have applied HCD in programmes including SPRING (SPRING and fuseproject, 2019), an accelerator programme for 75 businesses that served adolescent girls across nine countries in East Africa and South Asia. The programme, which ran between 2014 and 2019, used a HCD process of research, storytelling and synthesis, framing design challenges, brainstorming solutions and prototyping those solutions.

Lean startup

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build – the thing customers want and will pay for – as quickly as possible (Ries, 2011a: 20).In earlier eras, business success would come from planning, market research and creating and implementing the resulting strategy. This works well when forecasting is based on a stable environment and a track record of operations, but does not work with startups because they operate with too much uncertainty around who their customer is, or what their product should be (Blank, 2013). With the lean startup approach, the job of a startup is to discover the right products to build to provide value to customers, and to develop a business model that works as quickly as possible in order to avoid failure (Ries, 2011a). Rather than spending months or years refining a product or service before sharing it with prospective customers, startups should share early versions to get feedback and create a ‘build-measure-learn’ loop to test the riskiest assumptions behind the business model.

Lean startup advocates for the use of ‘minimum viable products’ (MVPs) – that is, building a basic model of the new product to be tested with customers before any large-scale investment. For example, a company might share a crowdfunding campaign, sign-up sheet or video explainer for a product they have not yet created to test demand – this is how Dropbox started (Ries, 2011b). If the MVP is successful, it can be refined. If it fails with customers, the startup knows to change direction. More recently, this approach has been adapted for larger organisations. Ries (2017) outlines principles of entrepreneurial management in The startup way, while The corporate startup (Viki et al., 2017) argues for ‘ambidextrous’ organisations that are capable of searching for new business models while executing a known strategy, with different processes for managing each.

Lean impact, developed by Ann Mei Chang, former Google Executive and Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, is an approach to social good based on the principles of lean startup. The main principles are to think big (set goals based on the size of the need in the real world), start small (to test and learn more quickly and cheaply) and focus relentlessly on impact. Chang acknowledges that social innovation is harder than tech innovation given the social sector’s predilection for planning in advance and the fact that those who pay and those who benefit have different interests. However, MVPs can be used to test hypotheses about impact.

Common principles of adaptive approaches

1. Acknowledge that the answer is not (and cannot be) known upfront, and that there may not be a single answer.

2. Recognise the importance of the political, social and economic context to understand any given problem or issue.

3. Start with the people you’re building for or working with, and encourage participation and listening.

4. Recognise that understanding a complex system or problem requires interacting with it.

5. Start small, with ‘little bets’ that incur low costs for failure.

6. Be intentional about learning, using research and prototypes to test hypotheses.

7. Measure primarily to learn, rather than to report.

8. Have regular junctures for reflection and learning.

9. Work in loops instead of in a straight line, so that planning, implementation and learning are no longer separate processes.

10. Be pragmatic about process; do what’s needed, not what looks best or is considered ‘best practice

Disrupt Development helps organisations achieve systems change by drawing on succesful adaptive approaches - agile, lean impact, human centred design, adapative management, thinking and working politically and problem-driven iterative adaptation.

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